Eight design teams have been shortlisted for the competition to redevelop the Windermere Steamboat Museum on the shores of Lake Windermere in the Lake District National Park.

The Lakeland Arts Trust recently secured initial support for a £7.4m Heritage Lottery Fund bid, including £494,000 development funding, to take the project forward.

The four-year project aims to create a development on a 7-acre site which will house a large boathouse display space, dry display space, catering and retail services, conservation workshop and exhibition pavilion as well as the landscaping of the green spaces.

The first stage of the competition attracted 114 expressions of interest and the shortlist includes:

Martin Ainscough, chairman of the Lakeland Arts Trust, said: "We are very encouraged by the quality of entries in the architectural competition and the panel had a difficult decision to select the final eight for the shortlist."

Gordon Watson, chief executive of Lakeland Arts Trust, added: "We are looking for a fresh, well-detailed and sensitive response for the stimulating and highly significant site on Lake Windermere and to display the Museum's wonderful collection of boats."

RIBA Competitions said the second stage of the competition will seek design concepts for the project, in which the shortlist will need to take into account the requirement of displaying the boats and other items in the collection in the exhibition space and wet dock, and enabling visitors to see the boats being restored in the conservation workshop, as well as designing an appropriate facility for the location to provide a new visitor experience.

The design proposals will be subject to public display and comment in late October and the design teams will be invited to present their schemes to the Jury panel at final interviews to be held in late November 2011.